May 28, 2021
Blog Writing Tips For Your Law Firm
Blogging involves more than writing and publishing. It involves navigating and considering digital marketing elements like SEO, readability-driven engagement, and content optimization.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create engaging and persuasive blog posts for your law firm to get more readers and turn them into clients.
Tip #1: Make Evergreen Blog Content the Foundation of Your Law Firm Blog Library
Evergreen content refers to blog articles about topics relevant to your readers regardless of when they find it. You can publish the content once and have it shared numerous times for months and even years.
Evergreen content will always be new and relevant unless it is debunked by another blog post on the same topic. Prioritizing evergreen topics can go a long way in making you appear as an industry authority to your readers.
Evergreen topics can be any of the following:
- Topics about legal concepts or terms
- Compare and contrast articles
- How-to articles
You can also create evergreen content by repurposing an article or publication you’ve already written by turning it into a listicle, which is likely to attract more than a third of your potential readership.
Tip #2: Sprinkle in a Healthy Dose of Timely Topics
Occasionally, you may want to include contemporary topics. The timeliness of these topics can show that you are up to speed within your practice and are on top of what people are talking about. This creates a sense of authority to your firm’s brand and readers may want to subscribe to your blog with hopes of you reading your take on the next newsworthy issue.
Timely topics can also add more volume to your law firm blog library. According to Hubspot, updating your blog section at least four times a week can help with brand awareness and organic traffic.
Tip #3: Create a Succinct and Attention-Grabbing Headline
Most people are scanning headlines and headings. If you introduced your blog to 100 people, nearly half of them would skim your article before reading it.
It takes some creative flair to create a headline that captivates readers instantly. You can use tools to help you create a headline that grabs attention and can rank better on search engines:
Tip #4: Optimize Your Content For Search Engines
Search engine optimization is what separates visible law firms from obscure ones. Making your content visible on the first pages of the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) is achieved with more than well-written content.
Perform Keyword Research and Incorporate What You Find
First, you need to perform keyword research. Knowing the keywords people use in their searches can give you a better handle on how to plan your content. You should use long-tail keywords, search terms, or phrases consisting of at least four words.
An example of a long-tail keyword is:
“What are the penalties for unpaid parking tickets in New York?”
Long-tail keywords mimic the way internet users phrase their questions. The best place to use a long tail keyword is:
- In the title or headline (H1)
- In the section headings (H2s)
There are SEO tools available for keyword research for any topic you want to blog on. Here are a few:
Check For Readability
Readability refers to the ease with which your reader understands the content. Often, many online readability platforms measure readability in grade levels. A grade 11 readability level means the content may be hard to follow. As the grade level readability score goes down, the readability score increases.
You’re probably not writing for your fellow lawyers. More likely, you’ll be writing content for the average reader’s consumption. According to the Center For Plain Language, the average reading level of most readers in the United States is grade 7 to 8.
Determining your writing’s readability score can be done with tools like:
Tip #5: Write For the Average Reader
This is very important.
As mentioned earlier, most of the online users that comprise your readership may have a grade 7 to 8 reading level. You need to tailor your writing style to this grade level.
There are many ways you can do this. Some of the most common ways to achieve a low grade-level reading score in your writing include:
- Using simple words
- Avoiding overly lengthy sentences with prepositional and adjectival phrases
- Minimizing comma splices
Once again, you can use on-page writing tools like Hemingway to get feedback on what you can simplify in your writing. you’ll be able to avoid high bounce rates. Your site will also be more visible on the first pages of Google due to your easy-to-consume content.
Tip #6: Go Easy on the Legal Terminologies
You are not writing for your fellow lawyers. You’ll be writing for people who may not have a handle on legal proceedings and documents. That said, always use the non-legal versions of legal terms.
For instance, instead of saying that a person was “exonerated” from a crime, you can say that this person was no longer deemed responsible for a crime.
Tip #7: Bullets And Lists For Long Posts; Short Paragraphs For Short Posts
The average high-ranking blog on Google is about 2,000 words. For articles this long, try to use more bullets and lists to make reading easier.
There may come a time when you need to write shorter posts. In these situations, opt for shorter paragraphs instead.
Final Thoughts
You have just learned the top seven tips on how to write a blog for a law firm. For content that keeps your readers coming, prioritize relevant topics, and apply SEO to your articles.
Most importantly, always remember that excellent blog writing informs through easy-to-consume content. Implement the tips you have seen here, and your blog will lead to more visits and conversions.
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